Denver, CO

Three Poems by Victor Clevenger

a bottle of strawberry hill on a saturday night is a magic
potion to make you feel fourteen again

& to remind you that sometimes the wetness of a soul still
needs nostalgic moments dripped upon its tongue

before the choir of reality
sings the moon to sleep once again

“gin & tonic poem”for phoebe carter

the hummingbird travels south before sunrise

her empty glasses on the table
are
ghosts
that walk through translucent reveries

“70 miles from dudley st.”

i gently burn
the end of this cigarette

i think about you
all of those times
that i lit a last cigarette
of the night & said
“i really don’t care
if the monster comes for me”

but now after seeing
the monster in action
something has kicked the cocky
right off of my wet tongue

the most that i say
at the end of the night now
is that “i miss you”

then i exhale my soul into
the winds

a wounded gambler

Victor Clevenger is a writer and poet who hopes for the more exciting side of death. He spends his days in a Madhouse and his nights with his second ex-wife, together they raise six children in a small town northeast of Kansas City, MO. Selected pieces of his work have appeared in a variety of places, online and in print. His most recent collections of poetry include Congenital Pipe Dreams (Spartan Press, 2017), Sandpaper Lovin’ (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017) and tom farris is my brother (CWP Collective Press, 2017).